Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Climate Scientists Respond

"On May 6, 2010, Mr. Christopher Monckton testified by invitation to the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Mr. Monckton, who is not a scientist, gave testimony that was in stark contrast to that of the scientists who were present at the hearing as well as the many official statements produced by the world’s premiere scientific organizations, about the growing dangers of climate change.

Here, a number of top climate scientists have thoroughly refuted all of Mr. Monckton’s major assertions, clearly demonstrating a number of obvious and elementary errors.

We encourage the U.S. Congress to give careful consideration to the implications this document has for the care that should be exercised in choosing expert witnesses to inform the legislative process."---Climate Scientists Respond (September 2010)

[Russian intelligence chief Yevgeni Primakov] mentioned the well known articles printed a few years ago in our central newspapers about AIDS supposedly originating from secret Pentagon laboratories. According to Yevgeni Primakov, the articles exposing US scientists' "crafty" plots were fabricated in KGB offices.

A coalition of leading climate scientists yesterday filed a 48-page document to the US Congress refuting an attack on climate science made earlier this year by the Ukip deputy leader, Lord Christopher Monckton.

Monckton, a former journalist and policy adviser to Margaret Thatcher, who has been the deputy leader of the UK Independence party (Ukip) since June, was invited by the Republican party to give evidence to the house select committee on energy independence and global warming.

His testimony included claims that increasing ocean acidification is not due to rising CO2 levels, that recent decades of warming were due to global brightening as opposed to rising CO2 levels, and that there is nothing unusual about recent rises in global temperatures. He concluded his testimony by stating that anthropogenic climate change is a "non-problem" and that the correct policy response was "to do nothing".

"For those without some familiarity with climate science, [Monckton's] testimony may appear to have scientific validity," said yesterday's response to Monckton's claims . "We have therefore undertaken the task of soliciting responses from highly qualified climate scientists in each of the areas touched upon in Monckton's testimony … In all cases, Monckton's assertions are shown to be without merit – they are based on a thorough misunderstanding of the science of climate change."

In response to the document, Monckton today told the Guardian: "It is unlikely that Congress will pay much attention to this. It displays a lamentable absence of quantitative detail, and a pathetic reliance on fashionable but questionable forecasting techniques that have long been compellingly contradicted by hard data."

The rebuttal was organised over the summer by five scientists, including Prof Michael Mann, the director of the Earth system science centre at Pennsylvania State University, and John Abraham, the associate professor of engineering at the University of St Thomas in Minnesota. Both scientists have sparred with Monckton in the past over his various claims about the veracity of climate science.

The document contains referenced responses from 21 leading climate scientists, including James Hansen, the director of the Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and David Easterling, the chief of the scientific services division at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Centre (NOAA).